However, not everyone knows how to use hashtags well. When used properly, hashtags (# signs that help categorize social media content) make it easier for users to find related content. They can help increase the visibility of your messages and boost your social shares. When used inappropriately, however, they can negatively impact your credibility on social media. This can have the inverse effect of decreasing your social activity.

The issue is more complicated when we look at hashtag used beyond Twitter, where they’re most popular.

What Are Hashtags?

This video provides a decent historical rundown of hashtag history (if you can bear with it for more than 30 seconds):

In practice, hashtags are used to categorize social media content into easily navigable lists. By including the #[INSERT KEYWORD] in a tweet, it then becomes visible inline with other posts using that same hashtag.

Research Hashtags Trends On Twitter

What The Trend is a tool that can help you find the top hashtags from the last 30 days. You can get new viewers by finding creative hashtags that fit your content and are recently trending.

Find Hashtags For Twitter On Twitonomy

Twitonomy can help you find personalized hashtags that revolve around the content you post on your Twitter accounts. It can also show you the most powerful influencers using a given hashtag, as well as who’s engaging the most.

You’ll need a premium to unlock this tool’s most useful functionality, but fortunately, it’s reasonably priced.

Discover Hashtags For Twitter And Facebook With RiteTag

RiteTag is a hashtag power tool for discovering hashtags. It also offers up-to-date usage data to show you how hashtags are performing in the real world. While the premium plans offer more functionality, the basic free plan still offers plenty of utility.

In short, RiteTag is like a Swiss Army knife of deep hashtag research and tracking. This video provides a good run-down of what it can do:

You Can Find Twitter Hashtags With Hashtagify.me

Hashtagify.me is another great tool for finding trending hashtags on Twitter. Plus, it also has an option to get email updates on trending hashtags as well. It offers free and premium plans for all sizes of companies, from individual users up to enterprise accounts.

How To Find Hashtags Directly On Each Network

Finding Hashtags On Twitter

There is a list of what is currently popular and a link to all the related tweets on your main feed on the left hand side of your Twitter newsfeed.

You can also use the search bar to find hashtags to know what folks are currently using. This is a great way to hone in on hashtags that are super relevant to the content you want to share.

How To Find Hashtags On Instagram:

When you open the Instagram app, you should see a magnifying glass on your home screen:

How To Use Hashtags On YouTube:

YouTube uses hashtags in comment sections. Try searching for videos related to the topic of your video to see which hashtags appear popular.

Clicking on hashtags on YouTube used to bring you to a Google+ page with more related posts. However, they now bring you to a page within YouTube:

How To Use Hashtags On Every Social Network

How To Use Hashtags On Facebook

A better question might be, “Should I use hashtags on Facebook at all?”

Data shows hashtags on Facebook do nothelp boost engagement. That means you might be better served by leaving hashtags off entirely. In one study, posts with hashtags received only .80% viral reach, while posts without hashtags had 1.30% viral reach.

Matthew tagged the area he was in, along with the topics that his audience would be interested in. That targeting got almost 20 more likes than the rest of his photos from that week.

How To Use Hashtags On Pinterest

Pinterest hashtags lead to search results for the keyword in your hashtags. That means if you have a hashtag in your Pin description, your Pinners can click through to find similar content for those keywords, not necessarily only for that hashtag.

There’s also no guarantee Pinterest will index the hashtags you choose to use.

If you do decide to use hashtags on Pinterest, then less is more. There is evidence that Pinterest will even demote the value of your Pins that have too many hashtags. Furthermore, some say the best way to use hashtags on Pinterest is to use your own customized hashtags that people click to see your own related Pins instead of directing traffic to see a broader category around a topic.

How To Use Hashtags On Google+

Google+ hashtags are automatically assigned to your posts. However, you can edit them, or add your own.

Google+ lets you include them in your comments as well. This gives your posts more opportunity to be seen.

How To Use Hashtags On YouTube

According to SproutSocial, hashtags on YouTube are most widely used in the comment section. You can use hashtags to categorize your content to be found by topic, using your keywords as the foundation for your hashtags.

Pro Tip: Increase the visibility of your YouTube videos by leaving a comment with relevant hashtags. This will then click through to a page with videos that contain that hashtag in their title.

How To Create Your Own Hashtag

There are times when you might want to create your own hashtag. You might want one to complement an event so attendees can track social posts. Or, you might have a unique marketing campaign that needs its own hashtag (rather than jumping on one that already exists).

Follow These Hashtag Best Practices

1. Be Mindful of Proper Hashtag Etiquette on Each Specific Network

Instagram hashtags are often more geared toward topics or descriptions. However, Twitter hashtags tend to be more focused on a topic or conversation. Get familiar with how your specific audience uses hashtags on their networks. Then, participate in the conversation accordingly.

2. Use Hashtags That Fit Your Brand

It’s tempting to jump on every hot trending hashtag out there. However, it’s better to stick to using hashtags that fit your brand. Use some common sense and ask yourself if a hashtag actually fits your image, message, content, and audience. For example, if your brand primarily serves customers over 40, then using a hashtag heavy on youth slang will probably look awkward.

3. Create Hashtags For Promotions

Running a promotion? What better way than to spread the word through hashtags. Here’s one example for National Walking Day:

Pro Tip: You can even give away free swag to participants using the hashtag.

4. Keep Them Short And Memorable

Twitter only allows you 140 characters, so if your hashtag takes up too much room, people won’t want to use it because it will take away from their content and links. By overcrowding your tweet, you’re going to lose attention, not grab it.

The same principle applies to other networks as well. Even on platforms where length isn’t a concern, staying memorable is (and in that case, the shorter and snappier they are, the better).

5. Capitalize The First Letter Of Each Word

#whenyouputmanywordstogether in a single hashtag, the letters can become all jumbled up and difficult to skim through.

#ButIfYouCapitalize the first letter of each word, it’s easier to distinguish each word and read at a glance. Hashtags are not case sensitive, so when you combine multiple words together in your hashtag, distinguish them by capitalizing the first letter of each word.

6. Use Hashtags In Twitter Chats

Twitter chats are online events centering an entire conversation around a hashtag. They’re a great way to build relationships with your audience, and encourage engagement with a branded hashtag.

Avoid These Common Hashtag Mistakes

Some of these tips are basic. Some you may never have heard of. But one thing is clear: If you make these mistakes, you’ll miss out on the engagement you were hoping to get from your social messages.

1. Don’t Use Spaces Or Special Punctuation

Use #SuperBowl not #super bowl. Your social networks will only recognize the first word. Don’t use punctuation marks, but you can use numbers as long as you complement them with a bit of text (like that #smmw16, for example).

2. Don’t Use The @ Symbol In Hashtags

Your hashtags aren’t designed to tag your network’s users. So combining both a hashtag and an “at” symbol will only tag the person/user, and you won’t send a hashtag at all.

4. Don’t Spam

There are websites, brands, and individuals that use popular hashtags and just throw them in their social messages with no context, just for the sole purpose of helping other accounts to find them.

This plan may seem to work in the short term, but just when Instagram did a complete clean out of any account that seemed to be linked with spam, these individuals lost hundreds of thousands of followers. Their hashtag plan completely backfired.

5. Make Sure Hashtags Mean What You Think They Do

Pizza brand DiGiorno Pizza made a huge mistake when they jumped on the viral hashtag #WhyIStayed. DiGiorno didn’t look up the context of the hashtag.

#WhyIStayed pertained to people who were sharing their domestic violence stories to raise awareness after Ray Rice punched his then-financeè Janay Palmer. DiGiorno tweeted “#whyIstayed You had pizza”. Within a minute, the tweet had been deleted, but the damage had already been done.

Pro Tip: Hashtags are often related to current events and cultural trends. If you’re unsure what a hashtag might be referring to, take a few minutes to do some research.

6. Make Sure Your Hashtags Work

If there is a symbol or punctuation in or after the hashtag, you will break the hashtag. Grammar police beware. If you want to post #I’mback, your hashtag will break after the I. You can tell where your hashtag broke when the blue line turns into black text.

Take a look at “#it’s” in this example of a Tweet scheduled with CoSchedule. The preview here shows that the apostrophe is breaking your hashtag.

If there are letters or numbers before the hashtag, it will break it before it even starts. So if your hashtag is 123#abc, abc won’t link to a hashtag.

If the hashtag is made up entirely of numbers, the hashtag will not hyperlink. But if you include letters with your numbers, the hashtag will work correctly. So #12345 won’t work. but #123abc will.

Real-Life Examples Of How To Use Hashtags The Right Way

Let’s take a look at some super successful hashtag strategies to inspire your own.

Jimmy Fallon: King Of The Hashtag For Social Media Engagement

Over the last few years, Jimmy Fallon has become a master of using hashtags to engage his audience. He even has a segment on his show every week where he asks his audience to submit their stories using his hashtags.

Let’s check out a few:

@jimmyfallon I once got a text from my mom where "You're amazing" autocorrected to "You're adopted" #momtexts

#LikeAGirl

When Always created the campaign that asked girls and boys to do things “like a girl”, teens tended not take the message seriously. However, younger kids really took it to heart. The aim was to show that as kids get older you get, the world instills in them negative perceptions about how girls should act.

The campaign was an overwhelming success. Since debuting in June 2014, this video has had more than 80 million views worldwide, which was helped in part by the #LikeAGirl hashtag that complemented the campaign:

#EsuranceSave30

Last year, they saved $1.5 million by buying air time for their commercial right after the Super Bowl was over. They promised to give away that cash to one person who included #EsuranceSave30 in a tweet. 2.39 million users tweeted with the hashtag, elevating awareness of the Esurance brand (for a lot less than the cost of traditional advertising):

And That’s How To Use Hashtags To Increase Your Brand Awareness

Hashtags can make or break your social media messages and engagement.

It’s super important that you understand where, when, and how to use them. Now you have a bunch of tips to get you started in the right direction!

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Ben is the Blog Manager at CoSchedule. His specialties include blogging, content strategy, SEO, social media, email marketing, and more. When he's not hard at work helping people create better content, he can be found playing bass guitar, drinking fine beer, and chasing his dog around the house.

This was very informative. I have used hashtags mostly on instagram, funny how #kitten #cat gets lots of attention. Of course, they are pics of my critters so it fits. Curious about using hashtags within blogs, any ideas?http://skincarsolutions.tuscanyskinspa.info

Taylor Paluck

@disqus_PuaVmqf4I6:disqus Now that I think about it I’m not sure. Let me look and I’ll try to get back to you with some data! Thank you for reading!

Twitters own research shows that while hashtags increase engagement and reach, they actually significantly decrease clicks.

One needs to really consider intention when crafting a message. Is your goal to have the most people see the message itself (not the item you’re actually linking to) or is it to drive people to a link? For the majority of businesses posting on social, the goal is to drive people to a link and thus they’d be better off leaving out the hashtag.

Taylor Paluck

@BenBrausen:disqus I totally agree, it’s amazing as a marketer everything you do should be with purpose and that is a great post. No matter how much data you have, and trust me I read a lot for this post, you need to be very mindful of what your personal goals are. Thanks for sharing!

Hey Nathan, I wrote about it recently. The story has links to a number of Twitters own studies on how hashtags and mentions both increase reach but also decrease clicks. Because of this, Twitter recommends against including mentions or hashtags in paid promotions, as they distract from the main purpose which is getting users to click.

Thanks for sharing Ben. It would be interesting to see data about the break-even point, i.e. when do you have enough followers gained to drop using hashtag. Because the way I see it, you need high reach to attract interest and followers, right?

There’s certainly a point where reaching more people isn’t the main goal anymore. It’d be interesting to know how people decide they’ve found that point.

For our main accounts, there has never been a focus on growing the following but rather increasing the engagement of the current following (we see growth through paid ads which bring in plenty without as much need to focus on follower growth as you would with purely organic).

A study published this month by Ascend2, titled Social Media Marketing Trends Survey Summary Report, showed the most important social media marketing strategy objectives according to marketing professionals worldwide. Just 15% of respondents listed increasing audience size as a priority (same percentage as increasing search ranking), the lowest on the survey. The most, with 64%, listed increasing audience engagement, followed by increased brand awareness at 54% and increase lead generation at 41%.

Based on the responses to the survey, it would seem most are more focused on the audience they currently have, rather than attracting a larger audience.

Ben, just read your post as linked above. Interesting and raised some questions that I want to look into further. My initial reaction is to think that the difference is between using mentions and hashtags strategically when the focus is organic reach, and avoiding those for paid reach to targeted audiences. Perhaps worth exploring, and maybe even doing some further testing. Thank for your observations.

Taylor, interesting and well done. Made some points that I had not seen in other articles about the same topic, so definitely added to the discussion. One thing that I have noticed is that sharing Instagram posts on Facebook seems to have increased the incidence of hashtags on Facebook. The one place I do see them as useful on Facebook is when they are branded hashtags or contest hashtags. A well executed branded hashtag makes it very easy to create collections of posts.

Great post! What’s your opinion on using hashtags in a blog post title or web copy headline?

Ben Sailer

From a technical standpoint, they don’t serve a purpose in post titles or web copy headlines. However, if you have a creative or editorial reason for putting them there, go for it. For example, if you were writing a post about a specific hashtag, maybe your headline would be something like, “How The #Awesome Hashtag Got Us 1,000 Pageviews” or something like that.

Ben Sailer

I’d say if you have an editorial purpose for including a hashtag in a post title or headline, then go for it (for example, if you were writing a post about a specific hashtag). Otherwise, they don’t serve a purpose in headlines. Thanks for reading!

Very helpful. Is there also a tool/app to find the trending/most popular hashtags on G+ & FB?

Ben Sailer

Glad you found this post useful, Michael!

I’m not sure if there’s a tool or app to specifically find trending hashtags on those networks. Rite Tag and Tagboard might be the closest things to that description I can think of (at least for finding relevant hashtags related to a search keyword, if not the most popular hashtags on FB/G+ across the board). I’ll do some more digging and comment back if I can find anything.

I’d love to try CS, but your form doesn’t seem to like me! (And I couldn’t find a ‘Contact’ button… so I’m here!)

I hit the ‘start your trial’ button and went to the form 4 times from 4 different pages — and your ‘sign-up’ form won’t take a password. And because it won’t take a password–Your form won’t allow me to sign-up.

I fill out the name line, then email line, it goes to ‘password’ for just a moment, but reverts back to ‘name’ & says “fill in password” but the curser wont stay in the password box! The form won’t allow a password, thus, disallowing signup.

Are you full? Am I missing something?

Dandaniellalond@sbcglobal.net (Email supplied because I couldn’t find a contact form… jeez, come to think of it–it’s not easy signing up!)